


What the Doctor Forgot

by misscam



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-15
Updated: 2006-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:06:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Would I foolishly fling myself into a situation where I would need to be saved from trouble by a past self and Rose Tyler, bronze-medal-winning gymnast?"</i> [Nine/Rose/Ten]</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Doctor Forgot

**Author's Note:**

> For lotus79 as a birthday gift, with what she asked for. Happy birthday a few days early, darling! Thanks to wendymr for beta and aww.

What the Doctor Forgot  
by misscam

Disclaimer: BBC's characters. I only borrow.

II

The TARDIS is listening. She always does, knowing all come to silence and all come to dust, remembered and relived within her, where time is her heart. All of time and all of space within, ever bigger on the inside into depths even the Doctor cannot see, and doesn't want to, as he's half mad already.

He's still the closest she has now, her Doctor. She doesn't understand him, but she can still love him.

Or perhaps love is the wrong word. It is hard to apply human emotions to something so alien, something so beyond. But sometimes, that's the best you get.

Sometimes, even the TARDIS gets a bit human-like confused and picks up the wrong call.

II

Rose is half gasping, half cursing as she runs, trying to punch up the TARDIS on her phone. Bloody Doctor. Bloody Doctor and his buggering about, which she normally is all in favour of, except when buggers off from her.

Bloody smile of his too, which always makes her forget to give him a good lecture.

Luckily, the phone doesn't have camera functions (at least she hopes so, the remains of an exploded Gnat Hen all over her), and when the TARDIS finally picks up, she feels a moment of profound relief.

"Doctor!"

"Hello?" the voice on the other end says, as if he doesn't recognise her voice and if half expecting an obscene phone call. She's half tempted to give him one.

"Thanks ever so much for dumping me in the middle of an alien planet, saying 'be right back!' and in fact not being right back and not back all so far. Where the hell are you, Doctor?"

"Who's this?" he says, and she wonders if someone's hit him hard on the noggin. He's slipping into his old accent, too.

"Rose Tyler, your companion?" she asks, feeling an ever greater desire to hit him hard on the noggin as time passes. "The one currently running for her life from a freak attack of Gnat Hens? Where are you?"

Blessedly, she hears the distant engines of the TARDIS above her, and she continues up the stairs two steps at a time, hearing the angry cackling below her grow fainter. Okay, maybe she won't hit him on the head. Maybe she'll just whack him on the arm and then hug him.

She grins as she rounds the last corner and sees the familiar blue of the TARDIS, hears the familiar crack of the door opening - and then spots the somewhat unfamiliar sight of the Doctor.

It isn't that she doesn't know him. Oh, she recognises him all too well. It's just that she saw him die and regenerate into another Doctor.

"Oh," she breathes. She can just stare, watch his face, familiar features and yet not, as if she's subtly changed them in memory.

Did he always have that nose?

She doesn't have much time to consider it, as the cackling grows to a howl, and he takes her hand and yanks her into the TARDIS, closing the door with his other hand. She's caught off-balance and falls into him, him falling to the floor and a dozen Gnat Hens crashing into the TARDIS door.

"I guess the assembled hordes of Gnatish Khan really can't get through that door," she mutters, pushing her hair away from her face and looking up at him. His jumper feels warm under her hands, triggering another wave of memories. It's unsettling, and even more as he just stares at her, making no move to push her off.

"I thought you said you couldn't change back?" she says, and she somehow knows he hasn't. This Doctor doesn't know her. He isn't looking at her as he's always done, old or new, and his face is darker, somehow, as if walking in shadow.

"Rose Tyler," he says, as if tasting the name and trying it out. "How did you get my number, Rose Tyler, and why are you acting as if I know you?"

"Because you do," she says, and he looks almost amused as she reaches into his leather jacket and takes out the slightly psychic paper before handing it to him.

"Rose Tyler, future companion. Bronze medal, under-7s gymnastics team. Slapping mother, beware," he reads, then looks at her and grins madly, so madly her heart jumps. "Fantastic."

And Rose thinks she's in deep, deep trouble.

II

The Doctor is in deep, deep trouble, and knows it. It's hard to be anything but in trouble when he's captured by Gnat Overhens, determined to torture knowledge out of him.

Bit of a bummer, that one.

"You're a time traveller," the voice says flatly.

"Yeah, except a bit more like time leaf, really, going a bit here and there and everywhere. Only way to travel, if you ask me..."

"I didn't."

The pain is pain. Burning, blinding, everywhere, leaving him breathless and senseless, shaking in his restraints. His arms feel heavy from the weight of him, and the new pain is at least a variation from the dull ache elsewhere.

Bit of a jam to get out of this one, really.

"Was it something I said?" he asks, because he needs to remind himself he's still the Doctor, and the pain comes again, angry and devouring.

He thinks this would be an excellent time for Rose to come sweeping in, but the darkness remains silent except for his screams.

II

The Doctor takes her explanation surprisingly in his stride, even if she leaves important details out and stalls several times trying to think of what would be safe to say. He just paces a bit and looks focused, interrupting her only once to explain his brilliance in finding her through tracking her call, which she's sure is a simple explanation for something very complicated. Things usually are with him.

Still, he is rather taking this with too much composture.

"You done this before?" she asks, and he shrugs. "You have, haven't you?"

"Only in great cases of fuck-up!" he protests. "The time paradoxes involved could flatten several small Universes. Best to be avoided all around, especially..."

He trails off, not looking at her, his pose so familiar she knows what he's thinking.

"Your people aren't around to fix it any more," she says, and his face shuts down. "You told me that."

The TARDIS hums a little, its green light caressing the Doctor as if that's the only comfort the ship can offer. Rose wants to help, wants to take his hand, give the familiar comfort, but it isn't familiar to him, so she just stands there, feeling a little silly.

He isn't hers. Not yet, anyway.

"Perhaps I did," he says softly after a moment, and he looks at her, intently and intensely, familiar and unfamiliar. It triggers a familiar ache in her, almost buried. Missing what she had, even as she's made a new home of what she has.

It feels almost like betrayal of both.

"The Doctor!" she blurts out, and he raises an eyebrow. "The other Doctor, the second you."

"Not second," he says calmly. "Tenth, from what you're telling me."

"Tenth?"

"Yes."

"What are bodies to you, just another fashion accessory?" she asks, a little bewildered. She tries to imagine what he might've been before, and finds herself only seeing bits of the new him mixed with this old one, this... Nine.

"No," he says shortly, inviting no further discussion as he yanks the TARDIS into life. "Not to me."

Certain questions he appears to never have liked, she thinks.

II

Questions, questions, ever questions and pain. He's getting a bit bored with the repetitiveness of it all. Least they could do was vary it with a bit of threatening threats and blustering talk, maybe even detail his gruesome death (ever a sure sign he won't suffer it, as that's the mysterious ways the Universe works), but all they do is ask, again and again. He's told them some things and withheld others, and he hasn't breathed a word of Rose. He never would, because the pain is not that important.

"Who are you, Doctor?"

"Survivor," he says absentmindedly, and the pain doesn't come.

"What did you survive?"

"Everything I didn't," he mutters, because it really is a silly question. Where did they learn these things, Interrogation For Dummies?

"How did you survive?"

"Luck."

Pain comes, and he wonders why it's always the truth that brings it.

II

He's really, really beginning to pain her.

Oh, a part of her wants to fling herself in his arms and cling on, lose herself in familiar emotions and not let go. It's just he's not quite what she remembers. He's more impatient and cold, and acts like a stranger, and she remembers him as a friend.

"This is where I last saw him." She indicates the market buzzing with life around them. Hardly anyone is paying attention to them or the two blue boxes in an alley behind, something she's stopped wondering about long ago. Blue boxes might as well be invisible for all people notice them.

She tries not to worry that the Doctor - the new one, the Tenth one - hasn't returned to his. Could be a million reasons why, most of them harmless.

It's just the not harmless ones that got her worried.

"Why did he bring you here?" the other Doctor asks, and something in his tone makes it clear he thinks it a Very Stupid Thing.

"Giant Easter egg," she snaps back. "I liked it."

"Giant Easter egg of a giant tyranny," he observes, looking around. "Giant oppressing police forces."

"Giant potential for trouble."

"Giant desire for trouble."

"Giant trouble saving you from trouble," she counters, and he looks at her.

"You save me from trouble?"

"All the time."

"Good thing I have you, then," he says, sounding bemused, and she remembers similar things he's said with all affection. It makes it hard. "Would I foolishly fling myself into a situation where I would need to be saved from trouble by a past self and Rose Tyler, bronze-medal-winning gymnast?"

"Yes, you would," she says, and he does smile, the ghost of a smile she loves.

"Yes, I would," he agrees, and she forgets she should be mad at him.

II

He's getting a bit mad with Rose. Okay, so she can't exactly know that he needs a bit of a hand right now, but that's hardly an excuse. Okay, so he assured her he would be right back, no trouble, but since when was he actually right about such things? Okay, so there are guards and insane chickens in the way, but honestly, don't companions these days enjoy a little challenge?

"Where's your time travel device, Doctor?"

He's run out of witty ways to avoid answering that one now, so he merely remains silent, trying to appear bored. It would be easier if he actually was it, and not somewhat terrified.

In the silence, he listens to his own heartbeats and notes that they don't really sound that good. Not that he blames them; the rest of him rather feels the same. Not good all around, but at least that's being consistent.

Faint whispers he's too tired to make out, and then the voice returns with a whole new question.

"Who is Rose Tyler?"

This is either a Very Good Sign, or a Very Bad one, he reflects.

II

"Is it a good sign we broke into a government building this easily?" she mutters to the Doctor, who just gives her an indulgent smile.

"It's a sign of my brilliance, is what it is."

"Right. Because wandering in, introducing us as Rose Tyler and Mr. Rose Tyler, come to see the Doctor, is such a complicated plan only a genius could think of it."

"It takes a true genius to see the brilliance in simplicity," he declares grandly, poking his sonic screwdriver at the computer once more. "They let us in."

"No, they didn't. They tried to shoot us and we ran and hid."

"Where we found this computer that will tell me everything I know," he replies. "See, brilliance."

"Hah," she mutters, leaning forward, brushing against his leather jacket and being for a moment thrown by the oddity of it all. It's him and it's not him, it's something she thought she had said goodbye to and reconciled herself with.

"Got me!" he says suddenly. "Trouble, all right. Interrogation room five, north wing. Found to be in possessive of dangerous device - they better not have hurt my sonic screwdriver - and classified as a Type Two prisoner... Oh."

"What?" she asks, trying to make sense of the alien writing on the screen.

"Doesn't matter," he says hurriedly, which probably means it matters a great deal, so much he'd rather she not worried about it. "I'll just set off a few fire alarms and while they're all distracted, we'll whisk me free, return you to the proper TARDIS, hope the Universe doesn't implode from the time paradoxes and everything will be right as rain. Easy!"

"Right," she says. "And it's not going to be that easy at all, is it?"

"Course not."

"Thought so."

II

He tries to think, and finds it a rather troublesome process. High sounds, that's meant to mean something, isn't it? It's meant to... Ah! Alarms! And alarms means... Distraction, yes! Getting out!

He beams to himself, then remembers the slight hitch of being chained up. And his lovely sonic screwdriver, all confiscated and probably being prodded by unfeeling instruments. He really wishes it was here with him, handy as it is to remove slight hitches.

At first he thinks he's thinking so much about the sonic screwdriver that he's imagining the sound of it, but it comes again, and the door opens. He blinks a little at the unfamiliar light, trying to make out the shadow in the door. It looks familiar, and he knows why when a sharp tingle makes itself known in his mind.

"Time paradox," he mutters a bit dizzily.

"Yes," the other him agrees, walking in brusquely and starting to work on the restraints. He tries to remember if it's always been this odd to have yourself walk in, but he appears to have managed to forget quite well.

"Hello!" he says, and the old him shakes his head a little, as the last manacle snaps open. "What am I doing here?"

"Ask her."

He turns his head and sees Rose, lovely Rose, smiling at him hesitantly, a horrid mess all over her top. He doesn't mind. He'll even let her have first go in the shower.

"Rose!" he says delightedly, and collapses against her.

She really does smell quite horridly, he thinks, and passes out.

II

"I hope I don't have this annoying habit of passing out too often," the Doctor says, gripping the feet of the newer him a bit more firmly. She doesn't really have the breath to answer, gripping the arms herself. She is grateful it was this Doctor that passed out, though, as she imagines the other is heavier. Not as thin, as it were, though the extra bits are very nicely padded and...

She stops herself before that can go much further. It's just likely to raise all kinds of speculation, and she really needs to focus on carrying the Doctor with the help of the Doctor back to the TARDIS without being spotted by angry poultry.

There's a sentence she never thought she'd ever think.

"I know," the Doctor says, and grins a little, as if he can read her mind. Too many Doctors, she decides, and renames them Nine and Ten in her mind. Seems easier, at least till Nine has vanished again and there's only one Doctor to keep in mind.

She feels a moment of bang at that. He's going to leave her again. She hasn't realised till now that's what seeing him again really entails.

"Patrol!" Nine snaps, and pushes Ten into her and her into a door, which luckily opens into darkness. She only backs up a few feet until she feels a wall against her back, and she wonders if this is a hen closet. The Doctor, or rather Nine the Doctor, has already closed the door and is so close she can feel his breath, and Ten's too. She can feel a lot more than she feels comfortable with, really, including Ten's head pressed against her breasts and Nine's very hard thigh pressed against hers.

Penthouse would never believe this one, she thinks.

After a moment, she feels Nine relax a bit. "Gone now."

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," he replies, sounding annoyed, and slams the door open, right in the face of a very angry-looking Gnat. "Or not. Yes, in fact, I'm not."

"Shut up and run," she breathes, and they do.

II

He dreams of running, of changing, of fire and Gallifrey and the smell of leather jacket, so cool against his cheek. He really did like that jacket, and he wonders briefly why he doesn't miss it any more.

There are other wonders in the dream, too. Like why he can hear his own voice talking to him, giving him a bit of a lecture on stupid things to do, and why he can hear Rose shushing him. Or why his blood feels like fire and Rose's cheek feels like tears against his palm.

"Type Two prisoners are those condemned to death," he hears himself say, the younger him. "They're injected with a poison, because that is considered the second most unclean death."

"Is he going to die?"

"I don't know, Rose."

"Can't he change again? Save his life like... like you did."

"I don't know," the him says again. "The poison is... We'll have to wait and see."

That doesn't sound good at all, he thinks, and dreams of death.

II

She's never realised how much she misses the sound of silence until she finds it in one room of the TARDIS, an empty and dusty place with unflattering light. She sits on the floor and hears nothing, not even the hum of the TARDIS itself, something the Doctor once described to her as the whispers of time itself.

She doesn't even remember which Doctor told her that any more.

She knows it's Nine who's standing in the doorway, looking at her, though. She can feel him, even if he too is silent.

"You can't die," she finally says. "I won't let you."

"Rose... Sometimes, that's not your decision."

"It should be!" she snaps, and hides her face against her knees, feeling tears sting her eyes. After a few breaths, he comes to sit next to her, his shoulder so comforting near hers.

"I've done what I can," he says, as if she would ever doubt that. After all, it is his life he is trying to save too, his own self he's run with all the way to the TARDIS.

"Yeah." She breathes, and lifts her head to look at him, seeing nothing but concern for her in his face, of all things. "I'm sure you'll appreciate your own brilliance."

He makes a face. "Not sure about that. I seem rather too caught up in my own attempts to be witty in that body."

She laughs, she can't help it. The laughter turns into painful gasps, and she rests her forehead against his shoulder, trying to steady herself. "I don't know what I'd even do if I was left on my own."

"You can come with me," he offers, apparently sincerely and eagerly. "You're not on your own, Rose."

"I've already travelled with you," she says harshly. "Now I'm travelling with him."

He looks surprised at her reaction, then shrugs it off with enough ease to make her think he isn't easy about it at all. "Wouldn't work, anyway. Bugger up the timeline utterly."

"I didn't..." She tries to find words to explain, but rather fails when she realises she has no idea what the explanation even is. "Sorry."

He nods slowly, pushing a strand of hair away from her face. She recognises that look on his face, and it's painful in all its joy. He knows her now, even if all their adventures are to come. He's hers, hers now and hers then.

It isn't him and it is him, and it's the best she got, so she kisses him. She half expects him to tell her off, but instead he kisses her back with an intensity that surprises her. She can feel something like desperation in his demanding exploration of her mouth and his fingers painfully burrowing into her shoulder, almost as if he's falling and she's the last rock to cling to. He's not gentle and she doesn't care, pain and pleasure already too closely entwined to tell one from the other.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat that might be a sigh when she pulls back slightly, and his eyes are so clear they tell her nothing at all.

"I better check on myself," he says, a slight rasp to his voice.

"Yeah," she agrees. "I better, too."

"Playing nurse?"

"Yeah. Nurse Tyler, what do you think?"

"Goes well with the Doctor," he observes, and she nods eagerly. He helps her up, and looks at her only a few seconds too long before he takes her hand and they head out together.

She's beginning to remember quite a lot of things that would be safer not to, she thinks.

II

He remembers dying. He remembers living. He remembers making a decision between the two before, and he remembers having the decision made for him. Rose. Oh, Rose.

"You're going to live, you bastard," Rose says, and he agrees because he wants to. He is. He wants to. Oh, how he wants to. He wants to, and he will, and he opens his eyes to see Rose beaming at him, and himself looking at Rose from the corner of the room.

This could get a bit odd, he reflects.

"Did you find my sonic screwdriver?" he asks, because that is clearly the most unimportant question at the moment. Rose just rolls her eyes.

"Yes. Also, you're welcome for the rescue," she mutters, but her eyes are still bright, and she clutches his hand, and he's feeling quite light-headed and possessive and silly, so really, he has no choice but to kiss her.

She's definitely surprised, but parts her lips willingly as he tugs at her bottom lip, and gets a very firm grip on his head and seems to enjoy ruffling his hair. The knowledge that the younger him is probably watching makes it a little more kinky, but that's all right. He thinks he likes kink this time around.

He draws his tongue over her teeth, making a note to stop by a dentist sometime and then forgets it promptly when her tongue traces his lips. He feels a little devoid of breath when he pulls back, and is pleased to see she looks flustered.

"Thank you," he says sincerely.

"Interesting bedside manner," the younger him observes, walking over. "Don't feel a need to thank me."

"I'm sure Rose will be happy to," he replies, and the guilt on Rose's face tells him all he needs to know. He tries not to feel jealous. After all, it is himself, just... An annoying, impatient, lecturing know-it-all self.

"Maybe next time she won't need to," the know-it-all replies.

"Says Mr. Almost-Killed-by-the-Autons-but-for-Rose," he shoots back.

"Um..." Rose breaks in. "He doesn't know about that."

"Oh."

Facts can be so deflating to a good speech, really.

The silence is awkward, and he uses it to get out of the bed, Rose helping him. She hasn't showered yet, he notices, and feels a great desire to drag her into the shower with him and maybe even invite the younger him to watch.

Yup, definitely more kinky this time around.

II

This is getting a bit kinky, Rose reflects. She's kissed one Doctor, been kissed by the other, and now she feels a bit like a bull being waved red flags at by two matadors. And she still stinks.

"Could you both stop acting annoyed about the kissing?" she snaps, and they look at her.

"Am I a better kisser then?" Nine asks, and a wicked thought can't help make itself known in her head.

"Why don't you find out for yourself?" she says, and smiles at them both. Nine just stares her down, but she doesn't back down and doesn't blink, and finally she sees Ten grin out of the corner of her eyes.

"See, snogging yourself is like a great, big time paradox never ever to be crossed," he declares, putting a hand on her arm. "I just can't help myself."

His hand remains there as he leans forward, eyes closed, but Nine's remain open and so, so blue as lips find lips and she's watching the Doctor kiss the Doctor. She notes the slight contrast of skin, freckles across Ten's, lines across Nine's, the kiss held and not deepened, more careful than either has ever been with her.

She wonders.

Ten finally breaks the kiss too, drawing a thumb across Nine's cheek, and she can see something almost like sorrow flicker across his face. For what he was, for what he suffered, for what he lost? She can't know, and it's gone before she can think more about it.

"Did the Universe end?" he asks brightly.

"Don't show off for Rose," Nine says calmly, but there is amusement twinkling in his eyes. "It didn't end the last time I did this."

"Last time?" she breaks in a little breathlessly.

"Fifth me ran into Eighth me under a sprig of mistletoe. Would be impolite not to," Ten explains. "Or were you thinking of that time Second me ran into Sixth?"

"You're so having me on," she protests, but both just beam at her, Ten mischievously, Nine manically. They must be, surely. Mustn't they? Either way, it is doing interesting things with her imagination. She's imagining a lot of things, and they all have both Doctors and her cheeks feels flaming hot. She does rather feel like she's falling in love all over again without ever having fallen out of it.

So, now or never, Rose Tyler. And she definitely wants the now.

"Rose?" Nine asks, and she doesn't dare meet his eyes as she takes Ten's hand and puts it on her hip, and then she kisses Nine, hard and inviting. He goes very still, but Ten has already moved up to her, brushing her hair away and kissing her neck, his body curving into hers. His sideburns tickle her skin, and makes her giggle against Nine's lips. Finally, finally he seems to give in, kissing her back with the desperation that makes her heart ache now. She wants to assure him it will get better, but maybe he already knows and finds it a pale comfort.

"Rose," he whispers, tilting his head to nuzzle it against the other side of her neck. Ten takes the opportunity to tilt her head slightly and kiss her, his hands working their way up her top. He fumbles slightly with the hook of the bra, whimpering slightly when she bites down on his lower lip.

"Amateur," Nine mutters in her ear, his hand at the hem of her skirt and dipping down until she's the one whimpering, which isn't helped by the fact that Ten has finally managed his mission, and skin has replaced cloth in cupping her breasts. She is vaguely aware that Ten is steering her somewhere, and she thus steering Nine, but she is rather more concerned with trying to tear Nine's jacket off without breaking the kiss with Ten.

"Careful, it's new," Nine whispers, and she aches for all he has still to come, and aches for his fingers to continue to brush against her, aches, aches, and then shrieks as she feels cold water fall on her.

She's in the shower, and both Doctors are grinning at her, looking innocent and thus utterly guilty. They don't have time to enjoy it too much before she yanks both in, soaking cloth and skin and hair, and then that doesn't seem to matter either, as Ten lifts her up and sinks into her and Nine steadies her against his back and he's easing into her too with excruciating slowness and she isn't even sure which of them is whispering her name over and over, and it doesn't matter, because they're both hers.

She closes her eyes, clutching at Ten's shoulders, feeling Nine's teeth scrape her shoulders, feeling skin and water and aches, so many aches that turn painfully into pleasure and she closes her eyes as time goes still and she burns.

II

Time passes, and Rose sleeps, and he watches her, one arm loosely around her waist. The bed is soft and he can tell he's been tortured and shagged in the same day, and he does almost feel like sleeping. But there is the minor issue of the other him, whose neck Rose has her arm around, and who is looking at him with calm.

"This is certainly a first," he finally says, trying not to babble in front of himself. "How did she find you?"

"Called the TARDIS. My TARDIS. I traced the call."

"Ah."

"You must've given her a buggy phone."

"You gave her that. Will give her that."

"Ah. How did you meet her?"

"Saving her from Autons in London."

"I thought she saved you."

"She does, later."

They regard each other, the former him obviously trying to form some sort of conclusion. "Still not ginger?"

"I know! I so wanted to be ginger."

"Rose seems to like it still."

He feels an odd urge to comfort himself. "She asked me to change back at first."

"Oh."

They both watch her for a moment, sleeping so very still.

"You'll like her."

"Yes," the younger him agrees, eyes blue and burning. "I think I will. Best I don't remember, though. I'll fix that when I return to my TARDIS."

"You don't have to go yet," he offers, and watches himself stroke Rose's cheek slowly. "Let's go blow up that Gnat government building tomorrow and then have tea and eggs."

"If you two would shut up and sleep, that would be good," Rose mutters sleepily, "or I'm egging you both."

In the end, it takes them a while to get to the sleeping part still.

II

Everything comes to an end, and one toppled Gnat oppressive regime and breakfast later, she's standing outside one TARDIS, and Nine is standing outside another, and it's his first goodbye and her second.

"Thank you," she offers, feeling it a bit lame.

"Everyone knows that if you need to save one Doctor, bring another," he replies, the leather jacket clinging to him, but he looks decidedly more cheerful than when she first met him. Less lonely, more hers, as she remembers.

"Will you remember?" she asks, but she knows he won't. He never did look at her as if he had remembered something like this. Or maybe he did, just not consciously.

"It's best if I forget it, Rose."

She nods, feeling the urge to cry and fighting it. He smiles a little at her, putting his hand on her cheek.

"Thank you for what you're going to give me," he says softly and kisses her. It's not a passionate kiss, doesn't feel romantic, just gentle, almost like a tribute or an offering.

She wonders.

"Goodbye, Rose Tyler," he whispers, freeing himself and walking away brusquely. She looks after him, wondering how it's possible to feel so good and so miserable at the same time.

Only when he's gone from sight does she feel the other Doctor walk up to her, hands in his pockets and hair straight up. She smiles at him, because she does love the sight of him now too.

"Did you really make yourself forget it?" she asks. He looks a little sheepish.

"Most of it."

"Most of it? What did you keep?"

He just smiles, taking her hand firmly. "Come on, Rose Tyler. There's still some tea left."

"And trouble?"

"Oh yes," he says, and smiles. "Lots of trouble. We'll never run out of that."

"Good."

He talks on, and she listens on, at least until she decides to shut him up, or he decides to let her shut him up, it's hard to tell. Maybe it doesn't matter, just like it hasn't really mattered that he's changed, or at least where she knows it shouldn't matter.

Sometimes, you just have to enjoy what you have.

II

The TARDIS is listening. She always does, knowing all come to silence and all come to dust, remembered and relived within her, where time is her heart. All of time and all of space within, ever bigger on the inside into depths even the Doctor cannot see, and doesn't want to, as he's half mad already.

He's still the closest she has now, her Doctor. She doesn't understand him, but she can still love him.

"London," the Doctor mutters, watching the controls intently, clearly concentrating. "Better make some anti-plastic, if there's Autons about."

She can feel him wonder briefly how he just knows there will be Autons about, but brush it away. It'll come back to him, he's sure.

The TARDIS is slightly amused. Or rather, she's almost amused. It is hard to apply human emotions to something so alien, something so beyond. But sometimes, that's the best you've got.

The TARDIS is human-like amused, and she can feel what he didn't forget burn brightly in his mind, just below his conscious thoughts.

 _London. Autons. Rose._

 _Rose._

 _You'll like Rose._

Rose won't understand him, the TARDIS know. But she can still love him, as the TARDIS loves him, and he loves the Universe.

Sometimes, that's the best you get.

FIN


End file.
